In the early breeze of autumn, when moisture sculpts the air, a tree lists, dipping a naked root in a pregnant river.

The root clutches warily a bobbing spoil, its wooden fingers clinging against the river's strain.

Instance: the prize fancies the grasp, speculates, and discovers the tree leaning forth.

The two share harbor from the river, entangle, feed, and grow together.

But as rivers tend to flow, and resolves weaken, root, whipped by the violent water, may snap, freeing the prize.

As the tree grows—and craves—there follows, often belatedly, a fresh root willing to test the waters of fate.